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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930742">your poetic titles can go die</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/two_nine_eighteen/pseuds/two_nine_eighteen'>two_nine_eighteen</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Animal Chronicles [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>One Piece</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Complicated Relationships, M/M, Slow Build, Snippets, Warlords in their prime, first encounters</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>In-Progress</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-06-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-06-30</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-04 06:20:07</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>6,900</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24930742</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/two_nine_eighteen/pseuds/two_nine_eighteen</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Another person,<br/>another way to see the world.<br/> <br/>Simpler.<br/> <br/>Yet no one gets it.</p><p> </p><p>  <em>(First encounters and their fascinations)</em></p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Crocodile/Donquixote Doflamingo</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>The Animal Chronicles [3]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1695982</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>30</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>your poetic titles can go die</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Hi, I'm alive!<br/>I thought I would do a oneshot, but my idea evolved much further so it'll be a two-parter now.</p><p>Thank you for reading!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p> </p><h5>
  <em>There’s a gunshot in the dark. The sound of a demon being born, unwillingly.</em>
</h5><p> </p><p>10</p><p>He doesn't understand that it's not common to hold a gun unwavering at 10. But he knows his hot red anger and he knows where to direct it to.</p><p>Knowing means acting. That’s why he pulls the trigger.</p><p>He does it for his family. That includes himself. And yes, this counts, because he also does it for mother and mother wasn’t here-<em>here </em>anymore. And now his father’s also not here-<em>here</em> anymore which means he’s where mother is. Well, maybe he has to search for her because he’s sure mother is at a much nicer place there-<em>there, </em>because she was smart. His father was not. That’s why he had to look for nice places there-<em>there</em>, obviously. He hopes father never finds her.</p><p>Now that its only him and his brother here-<em>here, </em> maybe they can look for nicer places too. Maybe they can even go back. That was the<em> nicest </em>place he knew of. The thought makes him calm.</p><p>He doesn’t understand why his brother is wailing.</p><p>“You’re supposed to be happy.”, he explains. “The bad thing is gone.” But it doesn’t work and it makes him wonder why.</p><p>When he shows them fathers head, the people behind the wall of <em>his </em>home still don’t want him back. That’s dumb and unforgivable and he throws his fists in the air and on the wall in a fit of rage and the people on the wall are lesser than him, he’s sure because they always used to bow before him. But they don’t anymore and that’s when he learns something else: If people bow to you or not depends on which side of the wall you are. Right now, he’s not on the side he wants and deserves to be. That needs to change.</p><p>He tells his brother when he returns, but his brother’s a little slow. Today he doesn’t say anything. <em>“Don’t worry”,</em> he tells him, assuring. “<em>You can come too. You’re family.”</em> And he gives him a warm smile, showing his tooth gap in the most loving way possible.</p><p>
  <em>It can’t be too hard, right? Going where you belong.</em>
</p><p>The next day he thinks, <em>maybe it is hard,</em> when his brother’s gone too. He looks for him, but he’s nowhere to be found. He’s not in the dust, not in the dirt not in the hell they call-<em>called</em>-home.</p><p><em>If the place I find is nice enough, he’ll come back</em>, he concludes and nods satisfied to himself.</p><p>He goes back to his underlings. It’s funny how they follow him. He likes it, because it makes him remember happy memories from when he was a small boy and the people-toys he’d had followed him the same way.</p><p>
  <em>When I find my place, I’ll make sure to have them too.</em>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>6</p><p><em>I don’t have to be small in front of bigger people</em>. That’s something he notes when a big man cowers in front of him, shaking violently. The man is dirty and he smells and Doflamingo hates when something smells and he tells him right away. “You stink. It’s disgusting” The man whimpers in response. “I do.”, he cries, “I am disgusting.”</p><p>He feels confirmed. It’s nice to hear. “Say it again”, he demands.</p><p>“I am disgusting! I stink like dirt and I’m not worthy to be here!”</p><p>It’s baffling. He always thought the bigger the people the more they’re allowed to do. But he’s so much smaller than this man and he can say whatever he wants. He’ll listen, he’ll do what he says and what he wants. It feels warm and nice and not like whenever father tells him to stop. <em>That</em> makes him feel small. But this makes him feel <em>biiiig.</em></p><p>“Say it again. Loud!”</p><p>“I AM DISGUSTING. I SMELL LIKE DIRT AND I’M NOT WORTHY TO BE HERE!”</p><p>“Say it again and throw yourself on the floor and roll around in the dirt so you look dumb!”</p><p>The man complies, and he leaves red stains on the polished floor that glisten like the evening sun and Doflamingo feels thrilled. It’s so much <em>fun.</em></p><p>Father comes and takes him away. “That’s not something good, Doffy.” He tells him, worried. “That’s not a reason to smile.” Father looks at him like he has dust on his shirt and he checks, worried. The smile on his face fades and father nods approvingly. “I’m glad you understand.”, he says.</p><p>He doesn’t. But he’s sure to remember the feeling of happiness this day brought him.</p><p>8</p><p>The day he felt ‘dread’ for the very first time is sadly also one he’s damned to remember. He can’t name what makes the air in his lungs shudder yet when they take his bubble away and he holds his breath until his face turns blue. Only when his brother shakes his arm he gasps for air.</p><p>His brother looks relieved but he feels like puking. He would, if it wasn’t beneath him.</p><p>The air he’s breathing now lies heavy in his lungs like water.</p><p>Why are people taking away what’s his? Why are they looking at <em>him</em> like he’s gross and smelly and not worthy to be here? <em>Father</em>, he thinks desperately,<em> tell them to stop. looking. at. us. like that. </em> But father just nods and smiles and Doflamingo knows that being small doesn’t matter and takes things into his own hands. He tugs at fathers robes, no, pulls on them. Father looks down to him and he hates how small it makes him feel. “Father! Why is this happening?! What are you doing?! Where are my toys, my slaves!?”, He accusingly points towards the other people, neighbours, citizen, familiar faces. “Why don’t you tell them to go back where they belong? Tell them to <em>get out of my eyes.” </em></p><p>Father pats his head. Every pat just fuels anger, boiling and brooding in his belly. It feels red and hot and comforting because it understands. How dare Father? He’s clearly stated his discomfort but stupid father dismisses it like he’s some small child that doesn’t know how the world works. But he knows that in his world things are not working the way he wants them to. He’s not a child in his world. He’s a king in his world. <em>But being king in your own world isn’t enough</em>, he realizes. <em>So I need to become their king too.</em></p><p>Father smiles. “Oh, Doffy… and Roci. It seems like I have to teach you everything from scratch again. You’re not at fault. That’s what I have done to you.” Father smiles, but his smile is only genuine towards his brother. When he smiles at Doflamingo all he can see is guilt behind forced gentleness. But he doesn’t understand what guilt means. Mother had tried to explain, but the concept was bizarre to him.</p><p>
  <em>“Guilt is realizing that something you did was not good. Like, if someone gets hurt because of you and you didn’t want them to get hurt, you’ll feel guilty, you’ll feel bad about what you’ve done.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Why would I do something that I don’t see as good? That doesn’t make sense.  If someone gets hurt through my decisions it’s their fault for not being careful.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“That’s the thing, dear. You realize it only after you’ve already done it. Look, let me take your brother as an example: If Roci would get hurt because of you how would you feel?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“So being guilty is being stupid? Why would you only realize that only after you’ve done it? Also that example is ridiculous. Roci would never get hurt because of me. I know what I’m doing and I know my brother. Also, no one is allowed to hurt us, right? Why is that a concern of ours?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“Of course you wouldn’t truly hurt your brother, dear, but that’s just a “what-if” ,something that’ll hopefully never happen. And you’re right, no one will ever hurt us, not in the way where we have wounds.  Maybe it’s just something you said that wasn’t very nice and your brother’s hurt about it. How would that make you feel?”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>That’s a stupid “what-if”, mother. Also, how can one be hurt by words? They don’t make you bleed or leave bruises like guns and whips do. They can’t possibly hurt. I’d probably tell him to stop whining, ‘cause getting hurt because I said something sounds even more stupid than getting hurt from something I did. And again, why would I say something I think was bad? This ‘guilt’-thing seems like someone else wants you to feel bad. I don’t like it.”</em>
</p><p>
  <em>“You don’t have to, dear. Like it, I mean. Just remember it exists, perhaps one day you’ll understand.”</em>
</p><p>Doflamingo looks at father, confused.</p><p>What he has done to us?</p><p>
  
</p><p>22</p><p>He’s finally got rid of it. Took him long enough. He has enough other issues to deal with, so he’s glad when he realizes that his stupid habit of biting off the skin of his fingers when his mind’s not occupied has finally worn off. It’s a remnant of times where he had to fight the malnourishment in his body somehow and his subconscious took the Uroboros-route.</p><p>He’d tried to supress it the moment he’d enough nutrients available to him but more often than not he’d found himself only stopping when he tasted iron in his mouth.</p><p>Maybe that’s where his fondness for blood comes from. The world has strange ways of distributing preferences, after all.</p><p>9</p><p>He learns the meaning of  ‘poor’.</p><p>
  <em>He’s stayed in the same clothes for weeks now. They’re full of dirt, sweat blood and holes. They stink, they’re greasy, they are rancid they stick on him like second skin, itchy and unsanitary. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>He retches in disgust.</em>
</p><p>He learns the meaning of ‘hunger’ and ‘thirst’.</p><p>
  <em>All he tastes is bitter bile, burning his pharynx. But he has to keep his mouth wet somehow or the dust would choke him. So he jars his fingers into his throat continuously and forcefully until he swallows blood from his ripped mouth and his fingers are covered red. He licks them clean.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Two days later his tooth falls out. </em>
</p><p>He learns the meaning of ‘pain’</p><p>
  <em>Whenever he used to tell somebody to get out of his eyes, they were dragged away from his field of vision.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Turns out another way to get someone efficiently out of sight is getting your left eye violently torn out while the other’s overrun with blood from the gushing wound on your front. </em>
</p><p>
  <em>Hands tear patches of skin from his body unpacking it like a present.</em>
</p><p>He learns the meaning of ‘loss’</p><p>
  <em>Mother doesn’t move. Mother doesn’t move. Mother doesn’t move.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>Mother doesn’t move. Whose fault is it?</em>
</p><p>He learns the meaning of ‘betrayal’</p><p>
  <em>Father took everything that was his. That’s what he’d done to them. Unforgiveable. Betrayal is unforgiveable.</em>
</p><p>He learns the meaning of ‘hatred’.</p><p>
  <em>An endless infection, contagious and deadly. He basks in it to gain immunity from other emotions.</em>
</p><p>He learns the true meaning of ‘cruelty’.</p><p>
  <em>Never will he be able to return to where he came from. Home, taken and gone. A young heart shatters into pieces. </em>
</p><p>He learns the meaning of ‘fate’.</p><p>
  <em>When they fall before him, unconscious and foaming like dead rats, he steps on them to look down.</em>
</p><p>
  <em>He swears he’ll conquer the sky one day.</em>
</p><p>He learns a lot. And he’s sure to remember every single lesson. By heart.</p><p> </p><p>17</p><p>He’s 17 when he discovers his delight for the dramatic. Through speech, through appearance. He likes the bewildered looks of the masses and the contradicting metaphors he can create. He likes it because, actually he’s <em>not</em> that way. But people believe easily so he puts on a show.</p><p>He likes the attention, too. He’s born to play.</p><p>Looking back, he’d say that Rogers way of closing <em>his</em> play has influenced him more than he’d admit as a teen. No one wants to admit to be inspired by dying men. How weak would that come across as?</p><p>His act also separates the sheep from the sharp. And while it’s nearly embarrassing how many sheep follow his act down the cliff, the few that don’t, are the wolves he knows he has to look out for.</p><p>14</p><p>There are days where he wonders if his brother had been real or if it he had been a splinter of himself that vanished crying the day he shot his father to his deserved place in hell. Sometimes certainty blooms in his brain, winding vines of little white lies covering the manchineel tree in his mind that is his metaphorical brother, assuring him he’s alone with his alter idem.</p><p>If Rocinante had truly only been a splinter of him, he’d been his innocence. It’s gone and he can’ bring himself to miss it.</p><p>Then the ephemeral withers and wilts and amongst the rotten rests the image of Roci, his relative, so very real while so far gone. He grits his teeth together hard that the muscles on his jaw pop painfully. Something that has the audacity to feel <em>like this</em> is no foolish fallacy of folly.</p><p>His thoughts break when the banging noises stop. The barrel of his gun’s empty again.</p><p>9</p><p>A gun to the left, a fruit to the right lay in front on the table.</p><p>The strange man stares expectantly at him.</p><p>He doesn’t understand the importance of the fruit fully. It would make him stronger, how? Well, at least it’s something to eat and he won’t refuse that.</p><p>What he really sees is a shiny, polished pistol, jet-black and loaded. The barrel is long, an extension of his hand. It can channel his anger and hatred into a more controlled output than he can bring up himself at this point in time.</p><p>He goes for the gun first.</p><p>Takes it, lets a shot go loose into the wall behind the man. Anger stabilizes his hand. There’s no recoil. Rats, scared away from the bang, flee in every direction. The strange man doesn’t even flinch.</p><p>It weighs heavy in his hand he feels like it makes his actions have <em>meaning</em> when he uses it. He likes the feeling. A lot.</p><p>“So, what do you think?” , he asks.  “You handled the gun like a king would. Can you be one?”</p><p>He answers by grabbing the fruit next, biting into it without hesitation.</p><p> </p><p>19</p><p>“Doffy! The ship! It’s – it’s gone! It’s completely vanished! I and Dia saw it just a mere five minutes ago! It wasn’t stolen or anything, theres no one on this -well if you can even call it an island. On this rock.”</p><p>“We’re sorry, Doffy! We promise to get a new one as soon as possible!”</p><p>“I can’t believe this happened…we were prepared and all!”</p><p>“…”</p><p>“Doffy?”</p><p>He turns around to his crewmates, half-moon smile shining on his face.</p><p>“Well shit.”</p><p>“Ah…” His crewmates turn to each other slightly confused. This wasn’t the reaction they expected.</p><p>He opens his mouth to say something, but then the ocean gurgles loud and roaring below the cliff they’re standing on. They step forward and look down. A giant vortex manifested out of nowhere, it’s eye a deep black that stares back at them mockingly. It tears the water down as well as pieces of bedrock from the hollowed out cliff they’re standing on. For a while they just stand there watching the abyss as it watches back. Then, barely after two minutes, it suddenly stops and the giant ravine in the ocean closes with the speed of  a blink of an eye. There’s no more but a soft breeze left lingering in the air. The ocean remains innocently motionless.</p><p>“That explains a lot.”, Trebol says incredulously, looking at the others to confirm if his imagination was just playing cruel games with him, but judging by the other rather baffled looks he can safely conclude that he’s not going crazy.</p><p>All of them flinch when Doflamingo starts laughing. Heartily. “I was about to tell you before but”, he turns towards his family once more, smile as broad as it was before.</p><p>“Welcome to the New World.”</p><p>17</p><p>They stay in Loguetown for three weeks. Preparing for departure to Reversal Mountain. The city gets redder as the days go by and it’s not autumn sun that does the job.</p><p>He creates his own fair share of bloody question marks in the city. Looks for others, to keep them close as you do with enemies.</p><p>-</p><p>The first time he gets a glimpse of him initiates their game of tag.</p><p>He’d been sitting on a roof, watching the crowded streets flow like a viscous river. His attention fell onto a small gap in the wall between two houses, a disguise for a tight dark alleyway. The way the coated figure slipped out of it and integrated themselves into the flow of human bodies swaying on the streets, he knew, was part of the skillset of someone that knew the act of <em>murder. </em>Not just the kill.</p><p>He follows, quietly. As much as he likes putting on his newly perfected persona, he won’t be able to fool this target. He could be a promising contender for his crew. He’ll just need to test him a little. The man he follows seems to slip through the masses without being seen without ever slowing down. He’s quick on his feet and if Doflamingo has to guess, he’d assume that the other man was somehow already aware of being followed. Which was impossible.</p><p>The first time,  he loses him after turning around a particularly crowded corner.</p><p>He halts in his tracks, but the people around him push further in both directions and he gets dirty looks from all sides for being an obstruction. His fingers twitch, annoyed. He’d slipped his grasp and it bothers him.</p><p>He turns to go back to his rooftop spot but stops at the alleyway where the other man had slipped out of. Out of curiosity he steps in and surely enough there’s a slouched body on the ground. He lifts him up on his strings to inspect it’s cause of death closer.</p><p>He sees nothing. Absolutely nothing.</p><p>Frustrated, he grabs the body with his strings and takes the rooftop route to get back to their ship.</p><p>-</p><p>Needless to say Pika, Diamante, Trebol and Vergo instantly surround him when they see their captain arrive with a body on board.   The others stay back but morbid curiosity keeps them lingering.</p><p>“Doffy…!”</p><p>“Are you alright, Doffy?”</p><p>“What did he do? Do we have to kill his crew?”</p><p>He waves their outcries off and tells them about the slick assassin he’d spotted in the streets and how he couldn’t find out how he’d killed that man. He’ll search the body thoroughly tonight and he doesn’t want to be disturbed. The others obey immediately and tell him that preparations for leaving are nearly finished.</p><p>He analyses the body in a scientific manner. It’s not something he normally cares about but he’d always had an interest in anatomy and the human body and especially the fragility of it. Prone to death and disease it was just fascinating to find all the ways a body could break.</p><p>He needs at least another hour to find his cause of death. He’d shaved the corpses hair off and there it was, right a t the small spot between nape and back of the head. A minuscule punctuation directly into his brain-stem, severing all the necessary neurons to make his automated bodily functions stop at once.</p><p>The victim  won’t even feel it.</p><p>He’d never kill like that. It’s not his style at all, he’d rather have his victim know what and especially who took his right to live but-</p><p>It’s such a precise and soft way to kill someone that Doflamingo feels a shiver running down his spine.</p><p>
  <em>What a gorgeous way to go.</em>
</p><p> </p><p>-</p><p>Two days later, he spots him again after lingering in the quarters he’d seen him the first time around. He knowingly looked out for him simply because he was intrigued by someone that got away from him- conscious or not about it. It was a nudge of fate, he’s sure.</p><p>So when he sees the furred collar and the dark coat, he looks a little harder and sure- <em>there’s only one person that moves this way.</em></p><p>He’s on his feet immediately, determined to not let him get away this time.</p><p>This time he follows overhead. He couldn’t shake the feeling last time, that the other was acutely aware of being followed by someone. So he silently moves from rooftop to rooftop, taking his strings to aid when he needs to.</p><p>The other man seems to be wandering around more casually than last time. It’s only a slight difference Doflamingo observes, but his shoulders are a little less tense and his- still quite fast- pace is not as determined and rushing anymore. Others wouldn’t have noticed the difference but Doflamingo grew up with Vergo always close by, so he knows his way around subtleties quite well.</p><p>He follows him out of the crowded quarters, to another port, a smaller one with less boats, less lights and less people around. The man looks around checking all sides and Doflamingo quickly hides on a balcony by ducking down. He watches him through a crack in the wall when the man enters one of the larger boats on port and is being greeted by a few members that come out of the ships rump.</p><p>He spots the Jolly Roger and lifts his eyebrows in surprise. Normally he’s no problems in telling pirates apart from citizen, marines or any other kind of person, even when they’re disguised. People have certain attitudes and no matter how much of a cliché lots of these traits are, they didn’t come from nowhere.</p><p>But the man that just disappeared on the ship-no. Assassin would’ve been his first guess. He’d also accept some sort of mercenary or freelancer or, although a little less likely some sort of secret messenger. A merchant with illegal activities going on. But not a pirate.</p><p><em>Pirates don’t kill </em> <strong> <em> <b>like that.</b> </em> </strong></p><p>-</p><p>One way to find out, right?</p><p>A few hours later, during some ungodly hour in the middle of the night, he enters the ship and quietly places himself on the window sill of the only room that has its lights on.</p><p>Of course <em>he’</em>s there, working silently into the night, pen gliding over paper quick and efficient. He’s a burning cigar in his mouth and multiple burned down stumps in an ashtray next to him. Doflamingo studies his profile, realizing he hasn’t really <em>seen</em> the man until now. Funny, how he’d invoked his interest by being as invisible as someone could possibly be.</p><p>His neck is strong in the way that he’s capable of turning his head away from things he chooses not to see. He has an unpolished front where shadows bounce of in straight lines tainting his face with unfriendly coldness. He’d look almost aristocratic if it weren’t for the crook in his long nose. It reduces his blueblood appearance into a mere impostor, who’s been caught in his lies but built them into truths of his own.</p><p>He has wrecked wrists that whisper stories of being shackled more than once. But his fingers are clean and handle his cigar and his pen like a musician would handle his bowstring and it contradicts him nearly crushing his poor cigars with his pre-molars to prevent them from falling down.</p><p>He decides to make himself known, excited grin spreading on his face “-…</p><p>“How long do you plan to keep on staring? God knows you must be bored when you watch someone doing <em>paperwork</em>.”</p><p>“… Pleasure to meet.” The other man <em>nearly </em>catches him off guard. It sparks his interest only further.</p><p>“Can’t say that for myself.”, the other answers, annoyance dripping in his voice. Then he drops the pen and turns towards him. He looks a little surprised to see how tall his visitor appears to be filling out nearly the entire window, but his  expression quickly turns neutral again, waiting for Doflamingo to excuse his untimely appearance.</p><p>“Rude.”, Doflamingo grins, “That attitude abhors guests, you know?”</p><p>“That’s the point.”</p><p>“It’s not working, though. I have no intention to leave right now.”</p><p>The other man just slightly squints his eyes at him, contemplating whether he should kick him of the window sill or just shut it.</p><p>“Doflamingo.”</p><p>“Hm?”</p><p>“The name’s Doflamingo.”</p><p>The other man huffs. “Sounds stupid.”</p><p>He continues, unaffected. “I don’t care about your paperwork. But I’m intrigued about what you’re doing in the alleyways of Loguetown.”</p><p>“… Whatever you mean by that.”, the other answers absentmindedly, but Doflamingo sees his fingers twitch. Suspicious.</p><p>But he really has no intention of beating around the bush for any longer than necessary, so he slips into the room, causing the other to immediately stand up into a fighting stance. He’s not in for an attack but drops the cleanly severed and shaved head of the victim on his desk.</p><p>“I mean <em>this poor man here</em> by that.” He grins triumphantly. <em>Got you cornered.</em></p><p>“I don’t know this man.” The other says stubbornly, his face not indicating anything in the slightest.</p><p>“So, you’re telling me you didn’t perfectly sever the most important connections of his brainstem in an  extremely precise and almost invisible way to get away with murder?”</p><p>“Correct. You got the wrong guy.”</p><p>Doflamingo frowns a little, irritated.</p><p>“You really think you can fool me  by playing dumb?”</p><p>“I don’t think I can fool you by doing anything since I don’t know what your fucking problem is.” The man is beginning to get more and more irritated, fighting stance indicating that he’s absolutely ready to go after his throat if he needs to.</p><p>For a moment, but only a moment, Doflamingo is inclined to believe. The confused anger sounds so genuine that he almost lets it go, but then the man moves a step forward and <em>yeah, bullshit. You move like you’ve murdered before breakfast. </em></p><p>“Nice try.” Doflamingo retorts, and he means it. He can appreciate good liars. It’s an art that’s easy to adapt but hard to master.</p><p>The man lunges at him, knife manifesting in his hand out of nowhere. Doflamingo steps to the side in the very last  moment. He’d expected the other to attack, but he’s still surprised by the velocity and suddenness with which the other initiated.</p><p>“Get off my ship, bastard.”, The man growls, “Do yourself a favour and get out of here alive while you can. I’ll get you out too but I guarantee you it’s not alive.”</p><p>“<em>Your </em>ship?”, Doflamingo asks to make sure. He’s still impressed by the fact that he couldn’t tell he was a pirate, let alone the captain.</p><p>His opponent does not take this as a compliment. He immediately terminates his former attack, turns towards Doflamingo, seals his left hand around his neck before he can evade again, squeezing so hard that the taller man sees black for a moment before getting thrown through the open window and across the railing.</p><p>Into the ocean. <em>Fuck, </em>he thinks. Then he latches two strings to the railing and pulls himself back to the ship. The other man has entered the deck and watches incredulously before gripping his knife tighter.</p><p>“Close one.” Doflamingo smirks with a look of recognition. He’s actually impressed. Not that he would tell the other, but he didn’t expect to get <em>thrown</em> by a man that was at least an entire head smaller than him. What a fascinating guy.</p><p>A strong gust of wind suddenly breezes across deck and a low rumble indicates a storm far away moving closer. He has to balance for a moment, his coat catching the wind and dragging him to the side, and the other man’s eyes fall on his belt, where the holster of his gun is located.</p><p>His opponent reacts quickly  and unpredictably by slamming his fist three times heavily into the wall of the premises.</p><p>Suddenly the entire ship comes to live. The crewmates wake up, obviously trained for nightly assaults and ready at the get-go. Their captain doesn’t even have to say anything and when they burst out, it rains gunpowder and bullets.</p><p>Something tells him that it’s probably not a good idea to deal with this crew alone.</p><p>-</p><p>The gunshots wake the entire quarter and all hell breaks loose at once. Doflamingo uses the chaos to retreat as quickly as possible.</p><p>When he’s out of their range and on his way back to his own ship he realizes that he doesn’t know his name.</p><p>-</p><p>They’re nearly ready to leave. Their reserves are stock full, their navigator decked with information about Reversal Mountain and its dangers. The reinforcement of their ship cost close to another week of wait but he doesn’t plan  on letting his journey end at the part where it gets interesting.</p><p>The view from the clocktower reaches far onto the sea. Dull yells and street noise only reach him as murmurs and below him the world looks like a colony of ants, busy and never capable of seeing the full picture of their pathetic lives. All of them are riled up and running onto the ocean before surface tension breaks and they drown with their dreams and open the way for the real predators. It’s just a tiny taste of what he wants to be but it’s far more than enough to push his drive to be on top even further. Power sure is addicting. He grins to himself.</p><p>
  <em>Roger, you bastard.</em>
</p><p>He looks to the sky, then closes his eyes in contentment.</p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>He should’ve known that this wasn’t the end of it.</p><p>That doesn’t mean he’s not a careless individual, no, he has learned the hard way that always being alert for the worst case is the first rule of survival. That’s why there’s a small string located at ankle height at the entrance to the tower balcony. Vibrating enough to cut the foot off the victim before he knows it.</p><p>What he doesn’t expect is someone to pass through and not making a single noise or seeming at least the slightest bit affected by it.</p><p> Which is exactly what happens.</p><p>When he opens his eyes to see who’s passed through, all he sees are long, ringed fingers holding a glistening needle about to dig into his skull,  to systematically cut of all the necessary connections that make him the bastard he is. He ‘s on his feet in an instant, his extraordinary survival reflexes kicking in before he even begins to think. Within a blink, he’s on the opposite corner of the balcony and with a short sweep of his hand—</p><p>--he cleanly cuts through the attackers entire midbody that shifts apart immediately, while sending him flying off the railing.</p><p>Then he <em>sees</em> the wide-eyed face of his attacker before gravity does its thing and rips him out of the air violently. At the same time, Doflamingo’s brain catches up with the visual information and it shoots through him like a jolt.</p><p>
  <em>--Him?-</em>
</p><p> There’s a dull <em>thump</em> a few seconds later and screaming on the streets.</p><p>That’s not how he imagined the outcome of their last encounter.</p><p>-</p><p>For a moment he’s actually frozen, before his senses fully kick back in. He takes a moment to process what the fuck just happened in the span of less than thirty seconds.</p><p>The guy from a few days ago just tried to murder him cold blood and nearly succeeded, by somehow avoiding his trap at the door. He reacted by instinct and cut him in half while simultaneously throwing him off the tower. There’s probably one gory mess on the streets below.</p><p>He looks down to confirm.</p><p>There’s nothing.</p><p><em>I’m </em> <strong> <em> <b>not</b> </em> </strong> <em> buying that.</em></p><p>A few people seem a bit ruffled but other than that the streets are clean and empty of any indication of the stranger. He jumps down the tower himself, using his strings, landing at a less crowded corner to get as little suspicion as possible. It’s already bad enough that his height’s already a big giveaway of his presence.</p><p>He checks the side streets near the presumed crashing site. One of them has a ladder leading over a wall into a backyard or secluded quarter of some sorts. He follows along. The air is full of dust.</p><p>He must’ve entered some sort of shortcut system through the city, using all sorts of alleyways, back doors and hidden niches and ladders to get from one place to the other fast and unseen. It’s obviously well established and used by the more experienced criminals and pirates in town to slip away from the Marines.  He probably would use the network himself if he didn’t have his own personal rooftop routes available to him.</p><p>Doflamingo finds him breathing quietly behind a bunch of old, unused containers covered in the same , thick dust as the streets and regaining his composure. In one piece at that. No wounds, no smashed bones, no split in half body, nothing. It makes him wonder just how many more aces are up the strangers sleeves.  He creeps closer without making noise.</p><p>The stranger has his fists balled in angry annoyance. “Shit.”, he curses silently.</p><p>“Yeah, that’s kind of what you are.” Doflamingo answers, after sliding quietly on top of one of the containers. The man tenses for a second, then turns towards him, wary and poised to attack but calm.</p><p>“ How did he find me?”, he asks coldly.</p><p>Doflamingo frowns. “Who is <em>he</em>?”</p><p>The stranger musters him intensely, scrutinizing him with an icy look. Then he loosens his stance.</p><p>“So you’re only one of his puppets. I see. We’re done here.”, the man draws on his cigar and turns around to leave.</p><p>His frown deepens. <em>“’Only one of his puppets?’ </em>Funny you think that,I’m no one’s fucking puppet. Done here my ass. You just tried to murder me, don’t you think that deserves an explanation?”</p><p>“No.”</p><p>“Is that so.”</p><p>“Yes.”</p><p>And then that asshole walks away. Yeah. <em>Not happening. </em>He takes a string and snaps his head off in a clean motion. He’s not concerned about killing him, but he’s curious how he escaped the fall from the clocktower. Also he’s irritated as hell and the guy deserves it.</p><p>And then it suddenly makes sense why the streets were so dusty all of a sudden.</p><p>It’s not dust. <em>It’s sand.</em></p><p>
  <em>-</em>
</p><p>The man turns around, head slowly reforming out of sand. Doflamingo can’t name the look he gives him. What he can though is realizing that the stranger is a devil fruit user himself- <em>and that he chose to not fight him with it that first time on the boat. </em>What kind of devil fruit user didn’t fight with the powers they were granted? Which brings him to his second observation- namely that those were definitely the characteristics of a logia. Sand, apparently. He’d never encountered a real logia user before but he’d been told that they were sparse and incredibly dangerous if they knew how to play their strengths right.</p><p>Which was obviously the case.</p><p> “Last time I checked the sandman wasn’t an assassin.”</p><p>“Then check more often, stringbean.”  </p><p>And Doflamingo hauls himself into the air the moment he feels the ground crumble below him. He spans a string between two walls in the narrow alleyway and stands on top of it while seeing the ground shoot up in a large spike right underneath him.</p><p>Sandman musters him carefully. “That’s a strange ability you have there.”</p><p>“Strange enough to not use your own ability while fighting me?” Doflamingo retorts. He jumps off his string and goes for a kick.</p><p>The man dodges <em>manually</em>, then his left hand forms into a large crescent, a <em>blade </em>of <em>sand </em>that’s about to sweep right through him. “No.”, he says while attacking. “That’s just strategic reserve. Not <em>your</em> strength, I’d assume.”  Doflamingo breaks the blade by crumbling it with his strings but the resistance of the blade against them, and the few strings that actually snap indicate their not to underestimate hard- and sharpness.</p><p>The mocking tone of the sandman is unacceptable. “Strategic reserve?”, he asks rigidly. Then he goes for another stringed attack with his left hand but stops and reduces it to a distracting scratch on the wall all while his right hand takes the gun from his belt and points it blank on the others front. <em>“Like this?”</em></p><p>He feels familiar <em>hot, red anger</em> and pulls the trigger.</p><p>Of course his head bursts into sand.</p><p>He doesn’t really care. He defended the point that attacked his pride successfully. Psychologically that’s his victory. He steps backwards away from the headless body and looks down on it  while he lowers the gun, slightly triumphant.</p><p>The rest of the strangers body suddenly disintegrates into sand as well and pushes into him like a wave on high tide. It makes him stagger further backwards and although he’s wearing glasses sand gets in his one functioning eye and it burns madly. It also lowers his already impaired vision into near blindness and the next thing he knows is that his gun’s taken out of his hand before a cold barrel presses against his own forehead.</p><p>“Bad move, you arrogant brat”, sandman says slightly out of breath, voice strained, “Don’t point <em>this</em> gun at me like that  <em>ever </em>again.”</p><p>Doflamingos vision’s still blurry but the grim tenseness in the others up until now controlled cold voice is new. It sounds like old misery and it’s as fascinating as the rest of the man. So he steps all over his self-preservations instincts yelling in his head and asks: “Or what?”</p><p>“I’m sure when I pull the trigger, your head wont just turn into dust. <em>He </em>wont be happy receiving the brains from one of his puppets in a package, don’t you think?”</p><p>“You still think I’m part of your personal business? I told you before that I’m no one’s fucking puppet, you bastard.”</p><p>“That’s what they all say.”</p><p>“Yeah, and did you ever consider the possibility that they weren’t lying when they were held at gunpoint? To put it into you own words: ‘Hey sandman, <em>you got the wrong guy.’”</em></p><p>Through his blurry vision he can see the stranger tense up further and the gun presses harder into his forehead. He hears the click of the safety trigger. There’s a moment when he thinks it’s over, but he remains surprisingly calm. Then the barrel moves away. When he gets all the sand out of his eye he observes the stranger who’s examining his gun closely.</p><p>“… ‘s not that one”, he hears him mutter. His fingers turn the gun in every direction, looking for something that can’t be found.</p><p>“Finally.”, Doflamingo answers sarcastically while not being addressed at all. “I want my gun back, sandman. Now.”</p><p>The stranger halts and looks at him, irritated. “Could you not.”</p><p>“What.”</p><p>“Refer to me as <em>sandman.</em>”</p><p>“I don’t have a name to go with, so sandman it is. <em>The gun. Now.</em>”</p><p>The stranger huffs. “Not so quick, brat. Why did you search the body and follow me to my ship a few days ago? You have only yourself to blame for me going after you.”</p><p>He knows excuses won’t do anything here. They don’t work on a man who’s already sick of hearing them.</p><p>“Is intrigue”, Doflamingo says honestly, “a good enough reason for you?”</p><p>Silence. Then the stranger makes a dismissive noise and throws him the gun before turning away and walking out of the narrow side street.</p><p>“No name? Rude.”, he provokes the other without following him. It would be pointless and would just result in them fighting again which could possibly end up being lethal for either one of them.</p><p>Sandman stops without looking back. “You got your precious gun back.” He takes a new cigar out of his coat, lights it and takes a long draw before continuing.</p><p>“Instead of a hole in that thick skull of yours. Mercy splits the strong from the smart. Learn.”</p><p>And with that, he’s gone.</p><p>-</p><p>Six months later, somewhere on the wild seas of the Grand Line, multiple bounty posters fall out of the newest edition of the World Economic News. The headlines announce in agony the New Era of pirates and underneath are the multiple assaults on Marine and Government Bases, listed by date, severity of attack and culprit. The world’s in a tailspin and the Donquixote crew slams their glasses together in ecstasy, drinking the blood of the new pulse that makes the world feel so alive these times.</p><p>Doflamingo flips through the other sheets after Trebol took his own increased bounty poster to show their crew and through closed doors he can still hear them praise their captain. It fills him with a pride that he’d never admit to anyone.</p><p>There are several faces he’s seen and a lot more he’s never seen before. <em>Fisher Tiger. Emporio Ivankov. Bartholomew Kuma. Gecko Moria.</em></p><p>The cigar’s the first thing he recognizes. Slender, ringed fingers. An icy look and a long, distinct nose. Captain, indeed.  A pleasant surprise.</p><p>He doesn’t notice the wide grin that spreads on his face when he reads his name.</p><p>
  <em>Crocodile.</em>
</p><p>“Sounds stupid”, he grins and he swears the other can hear him somehow.</p><p> </p><p>-</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>I'm back (temporarily). I apologize for my inactivity, but I have a three-month exam phase that is destroying my life right now.<br/>Literally. I forgot what is like to be human. But hey, I now can confidently say that I know what 100% lethargy feels like.<br/>It's shit.<br/>Rant over, sorry, I'm just not having the greatest year of my life, but let's be honest, who does? </p><p>Still, Thank you so, so much for reading! Posting a little bit online is my only contact rn, and it's the spark of my days!<br/>I hope you enjoyed this &amp; stay well!</p><p>-</p><p> </p><p>  <em>(This part 3/3 of the short stories series 'The Animal Chronicals'. They are not directly connected, though they are different takes on the same characters. slight AU's, if you will)</em></p></blockquote></div></div>
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